beagle with collapsed trachea

This is our beagle Maya and she has a collapsed trachea. This footage was taken at my job in 2011. She honks like this when she's really excited and when she's been running around. Sometimes her tongue turns blue and we have to stop and let her breathe until her tongue turns pink again.

We adopted Maya from the local kennel like this and it took the vets about 2 months of repeated visits to diagnose her. First they thought her pallet was unusually long, like a birth defect. Then they thought she had an infection because they put a camera down her throat and it was raw. Then they thought she had allergies, like hay fever. Then they tried steroids. Finally they took an x-ray and the collapse was plain to see. The vet said she was either born like this or her previous owner could've abused her. We'll never know.

We're a military couple stationed in Japan and the clinic said they do not operate on collapsed tracheas out here. They said they don't think she's in any pain (I think she's in some pain), and that the honking is probably more of a nuisance for her. So when we return to the states we may be looking into getting an operation for a trachea stent. I guess the surgery is a few thousand dollars??




There are times when we feel bad for Maya, but she's a really happy and sweet dog and we're so glad we found her.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• beagle
• snort
• honk
• collapsed trachea
• trachea stent
• dog